The Overcoming Life, and Other SermonsMoody, Dwight Lyman
Religion
The Overcoming Life, and Other Sermons
Moody, Dwight Lyman
Evangelistic sermons; Evangelistic work; Sermons, American
My dear friends, isn't it humiliating? Sometimes I think it is a
wonder that any man is converted these days. Let another praise you.
Don't be around praising yourself. If we want God to lift us up, let
us get down. The lower we get, the higher God will lift us. It is
Christ's eulogy of John, "Greater than any man born of woman."
There is a story told of Carey, the great missionary, that he was
invited by the Governor-general of India to go to a dinner party at
which were some military officers belonging to the aristocracy, and
who looked down upon missionaries with scorn and contempt.
One of these officers said at the table: "I believe that Carey was a
shoemaker, wasn't he, before he took up the profession of a
missionary?"
Mr. Carey spoke up and said: "Oh no, I was only a cobbler. I could
mend shoes, and wasn't ashamed of it."
The one prominent virtue of Christ, next to His obedience, is His
humility; and even His obedience grew out of His humility. Being in
the form of God, He counted it not a thing to be grasped to be on an
equality with God, but He emptied Himself, taking the form of a
bond-servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in
fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death,
yea, the death of the cross. In His lowly birth, His submission to His
earthly parents, His seclusion during thirty years, His consorting
with the poor and despised, His entire submission and dependence upon
His Father, this virtue that was consummated in His death on the
cross, shines out.
One day Jesus was on His way to Capernaum, and was talking about His
coming death and suffering, and about His resurrection, and He heard
quite a heated discussion going on behind Him. When He came into the
house at Capernaum, He turned to His disciples, and said:
"What was all that discussion about?"
I see John look at James, and Peter at Andrew,--and they all looked
ashamed. "Who shall be the greater?" That discussion has wrecked party
after party, one society after another--"Who shall be the greatest?"
The way Christ took to teach them humility was by putting a little
child in their midst and saying: "If you want to be great, take that
little child for an example, and he who wants to be the greatest, let
him be servant of all."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account